Korea Investment Corp., the nation’s $43 billion sovereign wealth fund, said European assets are “attractive” amid the region’s sovereign debt crisis, and it plans to buy more real estate.
Europe “got to sell off assets to try to alleviate the burden,” Chief Investment Officer Scott Kalb said in an interview in Seoul yesterday. “We just want to be in a position to buy those assets when attractive opportunities arise. We want to be ready to take advantage of it.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

The investment portfolio of Malaysia’s state strategic investment arm, Khazanah Nasional, fell slightly to 108.1 billion ringgit ($35 billion) at the end of last year from 112.6 billion ringgit at the end of 2010, its managing director Azman Mokhtar said on Wednesday.
Khazanah has been aggressively scaling back its holdings in the Southeast Asian country’s top companies as part of a government strategy to boost liquidity in the stock market and lighten the state’s heavy hand in the economy………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Khazanah Nasional Bhd., Malaysia’s state investment company, said the value of its portfolio fell 7 percent last year, dragged down by “soft” markets.
The net asset value of Khazanah’s investments slid to 70 billion ringgit ($22.5 billion) at the end of 2011 from 75.2 billion ringgit a year earlier, the Kuala Lumpur-based fund said in a statement. The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index climbed 0.8 percent, the smallest annual gain in three years………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s profit before tax for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2011 surged 156% to RM5.33bil from RM2.08bil in the previous year due to divestments in its stable of companies.
Khazanah MD Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar said that it had paid out dividends totalling RM3bil last year to the Government. “This is our best performance to date (in terms of profit growth) since our inception eight years ago,” Azman said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A unit of Singapore’s state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings is selling 200 million shares of Shin Corporation in a deal that could raise as much as US$261 million (7.8 billion baht).
The 6.2% stake is being sold at 40.1 baht to 41.60 baht a share, according to a report by Reuters. The Temasek unit, Cedar Holdings Ltd, has a 44.2% stake in Shin and the sale will increase Shin’s free float to 20.4%………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Thai telecoms group Shin Corp Pcl said on Thursday that Cedar Holdings, a unit of Singapore Temasek Holdings, had sold 200 million shares, or 6.2 percent of Shin.
The sale would dilute Cedar’s holding in Shin to 37.99 percent, the Thai firm told the stock exchange. That comfirmed an IFR report late on Wednesday………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Temasek Holdings and Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds, are looking to sell a part or all of their holding in ICICI Bank, India’s biggest private sector lender by assets.
Temasek and GIC are looking to sell a part or all of their holding in ICICI Bank through block deals on stock excha-nges, according to brokers familiar with the matter. JP Morgan has been given the mandate to do the block deals, they said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Okonjo Iweala, is not opposed to the Sovereign Wealth Fund and was the driving force for its take-off, a Lagos-based Centre for Service Integrity has disclosed.
Reacting to a story published in the Nigerian Tribune on Wednesday, the Executive Secretary of the centre,Kennedy Apagi, described the story as “a misrepresentation of the reality with respect to the take-off of the fund in which Dr Okonjo-Iweala took courageous step and decisions………………………………………..Full Article: Source

From its startling winning bid to host the 2022 football World Cup and mediating roles in Middle East and African conflicts to its role leading Arab efforts to isolate Syria, tiny Qatar is aspiring to an ambitious role: global power broker.
The country’s sovereign wealth fund, estimated to have assets worth around $70 billion, has poured more than $20 billion in recent years into stakes in German carmakers Porsche and Volkswagen, Agricultural Bank of China, Santander Brasil, Spain’s Iberdrola and German builder Hochtief………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Qatar National Bank says is planning to buy a majority stake in Morocco-based lender Union Marocaine des Banques as it looks to expand its presence in Africa.
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, controls QNB through a 50 percent stake. The deal comes a day after another government-owned Gulf investor, Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments, agreed to raise its stake in Italian lender UniCredit to 6.5 percent from about 5 percent now………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The international reserves of the country, including the National Fund assets increased by 27.3 percent and amounted to $75.4 billion in January-November 2011, the official website of the Kazakh Prime Minister said with the reference to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.
The growth occurred despite the funds to the amount of 1.2 trillion tenge (over $ 8 billion) were raised from the National Fund amid the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 to maintain the stability of the economy………………………………………..Full Article: Source